


Well Met By Sunlight

by afterandalasia



Series: Femslash100100: Around the Clock [1]
Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991), Tangled (2010)
Genre: Adventure, Adventurer Belle (Disney), Canon Universe, Community: femslash100100, Crossover Pairings, F/F, Ficlet, First Meetings, Pre-Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-07
Updated: 2016-10-07
Packaged: 2018-08-20 01:56:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8232100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: Once upon a time, there was a girl named Belle.
But that was a while ago.
Nowadays, there's a woman who calls herself Flynn Rider, and lives for adventure and the discovery of new stories. Only she is caught by surprise by the story that she stumbles into this time.
 
00:00 - Beginning





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is written for the femslash100100 prompt table "Around the Clock", specifically "00:00 - Beginning".

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Belle.

But that was a while ago.

The woman who called herself Flynn Rider galloped full-tilt along the road, giving Phillipe his head. She stole a glance over his shoulder to see the guards still pursuing her, or at least their captain on a white stallion who seemed to have a lot more fire than any of the other horses.

"Damn it," she breathed, and turned her eyes back to the road ahead. Looked like she was going to have to work harder to shake these guys.

Okay, so she shouldn't have been in the library. Especially since it was the royal library, and that was by its nature somewhat exclusive in who was supposed to enter it. But Belle had heard far too many stories about the beauty and grandeur of the library of Corona Palace to _not_ give it a try. I mean, really, with stories that amazing, it was almost an invitation to check it out.

She hadn't been intending to  _steal_ anything. Look in some books, maybe take some notes from the best ones, but mostly she was just after the memories. And, if she was completely honest, the adventure.

Another glance over the shoulder told him that the Captain was still within sight, even if his men had fallen further behind. The wind whipped her hair into her eyes, but she flicked it away again with a toss of her head. This was maybe a little bit more adventure than she had been planning today, especially since she didn't currently have a sword with which to defend herself. Shouldn't have been gambling in any inn, especially one called the Snuggly Duckling. A roguish young man with a smirk and carefully-trimmed facial hair, who may or may not have been lying when he gave the name Eugene, had thoroughly beaten her at cards and demanded her sword as payment. It could have been worse, and she chalked it up to a learning opportunity, but it was still less than ideal at the moment.

She turned Phillipe off the main path and onto a smaller track, keeping her eyes ahead of them as they wove between trees and ragged clumps of grass. It was much more dangerous to be riding like this in such an area, but she trusted Phillipe, hopefully more than the captain trusted his horse.

"Come on, boy," she said, as branches whipped over their head. "We've escaped worse."

The time she had nearly been arrested for telling stories in the street, presumed to have been trying to whip up dissent against the city's rulers. The far too many times she had been accused of stealing. Her only interest in money was as a key to more stories, more adventures. She'd been in trouble more than once for asking guards how exactly she was supposed to have _stolen_ knowledge.

Alright, so maybe the times she'd been caught in the bed of a nobleman's daughter would be considered more of an issue. But even then, she'd protest that it was the girl's choice, and that she ought to be free to make it. Unfortunately, a number of possessive fathers had not seen it that way.

They took a bend of the path, fast, the track becoming so narrow that it had almost petered out, shorter grass rather than bared earth. Belle's eyes went wide, and she tried to haul on Phillipe's reins, as she realised that the path led only to a tiny clearing, a half-circle of grass and flowers framed by a rock wall on one side, draped with ivy. Phillipe whinnied his own shock, but they were going too fast, and before she could stop them, they slammed into the ivy-covered wall.

Or... didn't.

Belle cracked open one eye again, then looked around in bewilderment, as she found herself in a small hollow of a valley. A look over her shoulder showed that what she had taken for solid ivy had a doorway through it, one which they had been lucky enough to hit. The ivy swayed in the wind, but blocked almost all of the light, never mind the actual view. The valley itself was almost circular, sheer rock walls all around, with a single spire of a tower piercing up from the middle.

"Shhh, Phillipe," she murmured, running her hand over his neck. He was breathing hard, but not overstressed, more than capable of such a run. Belle rubbed gentle circles as she saw the faint silhouette of the captain and his horse charge into view, as she heard him curse to a halt, and the annoyed grunting of the horse as he tugged them around.

"Where the hell-" the captain spluttered, his voice dulled by the ivy and the wind.

Belle grinned to herself. Nobody was even going to _believe_ this story.

 

 

 

 

 

The tower had a door, but it was locked. She made a couple of attempts to pick it, but the lock was stubborn, and as the sun passed its zenith and started down again she gave it up for a bad job. Her curiosity was piqued, though, and she produced her climbing gloves from her bag - the rough fabric had metal claws attached to the heels of the hand, making them one of the best tools that Belle had ever found. At the time, she had thanked the young man in question with a drink, a meal, and a tumble between the sheets, but after all these years she felt like she might have owed him rather more.

All the same, the tower was _tall_. It was enough to set her muscles burning, and had it not been so mysterious Belle might have given up altogether before scrambling in through the windowsill and ending up on her backside on the floor. Mercifully, looking up meant that she had _just_ enough time to see the blur of metal heading towards her, and if there was one thing in which Flynn Rider needed to be skilled, it was dodging. She flung herself to the side, knocking a chair screeching across the floor, and managed to get to her knees in time to come face-to-face with the woman holding the frying pan.

Her first thought was that _woman_ might be overstating it; the girl could not be out of her teens. Her second thought was: _frying pan_? She fixed the object with a look of bewilderment, apparently marked enough that the girl looked at it as well, hesitated, then settled her expression to something sterner and pointed the pan at Belle as if it were actually a weapon.

"This is cast iron," she said. There was a slight wobble in her voice, but Belle was kinder than to point it out. "Don't think I can't do some damage with it."

"I believe you," said Belle, not moving from where she crouched. She could _probably_ get out of the way of another swing, but if she were honest she did not much want to risk it. Always better to talk your way out of things.

"Why are you here?" the girl demanded. "Are you looking to kidnap me, hmm? To steal my hair?"

There was a _lot_ of hair, now that she mentioned it. Belle realised that what she had originally taken for swags of fabric and shafts of sunlight were, every single one of them, shining golden hair. She looked around the room slowly, taking it all in, before remembering that she should probably be denying what she was being accused of.

Especially since it wasn't actually true.

"No, no," she said. "I just saw the tower and... had to check it out. Curiosity. It's a curse."

She smiled playfully, and though the girl did not completely soften, some interest sparked in her eyes. "You were... curious?" she echoed, lowering the frying pan a fraction.

"Yes," said Belle. "I can't resist looking at new things. Learning new stories. I thought it would be abandoned or something, didn't even know there was anyone up here."

"So you like discovering things."

"I guess you could say that."

The frying pan lowered a little more, and the girl glanced around her. "Okay," she said slowly, then her green eyes locked onto Belle's. "I want to make a deal. I let you out of this tower," another vaguely threatening gesture with the frying pan; "and _you_ help me discover something. The floating lights, from north of here."

It was going to mean risking being near the guards again, but Belle had done stupider things over the years. Swap her tunic for a dress, let her hair down, and she'd probably be almost unrecognisable to them. More than one of them had called her 'boy' as she had been escaping anyway. She smiled, Flynn Rider's lazy, promising smile.

"Blondie, you've got a deal. What's your name?"

"What's _yours_?" the girl retorted.

"Flynn Rider," said Belle, without a moment's hesitation.

For a moment, the girl still hesitated, then she finally lowered the pan altogether. "Rapunzel," she said.

"Like the plant?" said Belle. Rapunzel looked confused. "Heard of a plant called that in a story once. Hey, who knows? Maybe I could tell you along the way."

Finally, a little nervously, Rapunzel smiled. And that, Belle supposed, was a good start.

A better one than being hit with a frying pan, in any case.


End file.
